Left Unsaid
by LadyZotalot
Summary: Wally's friends and family never tell him what he needs to hear. Involves Martian philopshy on friendship, prom dates, spiders, giants, and zen multidimensional travel. KaldurxWally and some LindaxWally. Iris, Dick and M'gann are secondary characters.
1. The View

_A/N: This story started as a five plus one for an anon_meme prompt about different characters thinking Wally is beautiful but not telling him with the plus one being the one person who does. _Anyways, this really isn't a five plus one since there's over a dozen chapters and Kaldur gets multiple parts. _Some chapters are drabble-ish but this chapter is the shortest at 450 words. The rest are at least 750 but most are over 1000. _

* * *

><p><em><strong>One: Aunt Iris<strong>_

Iris wondered if she was ever as adorable as her nephew when she was eight. Had her freckles been that big and blotchy? Had the tips of her fiery hair rolled into little loops at the end? Had her smile been so wide or her laugh been so free?

She watched intently at Wally's determination to reach the top of the hill by his own efforts alone. Barry had offered to carry the bike up the hill for him, but Wally had just frowned and explained to his (unofficial) Uncle very slowly that _bikes_ are for _riding _and Aunt Iris' _purses_ are for _carrying_. Barry had turned to the heavy bag that Iris was in fact forcing him to carry for her because, well, it was _heavy._

Had Iris' mind been so intuitive at such a young age? Had she known all the buttons to push?

"I am so whipped," Barry said with a sigh as he gazed up the hill where his girlfriend was waiting.

She watched as the bike almost toppled over as Wally's abounding energy sputtered out momentarily. A gasp rose up in her throat but Barry, in a flash, grabbed hold of the bike's seat and righted it before Wally could be hurt. Her nephew realigned himself back into a less awkward position on the seat and returned to furiously pounding down on the pedals.

Had Iris ever been so resilient?

She wondered how Wally turned out to be such a beautiful person. Was he born that way or was it something else?

Iris thought back to when she was eight. Her brother Ruddy, Wally's father, had been the one standing behind her bike in case she fell.

What had motivated her to keep pedaling no matter what? Iris forced herself to remember.

When she was little, all Iris had wanted was for her big brother (her whole world) to be proud of her.

"That's the spirit," she shouted down to Wally. His face lit up and Iris knew then that he must be the most beautiful little boy in the whole wide world.

Barry leaned down and murmured an idea into Wally's ear. The boy laughed and went along with his Uncle's suggestion.

"I've got a beautiful view to motivate me!" he shouted up to his Aunt. Iris smiled widely and laughed freely. She waved down to her boys, her very own 'beautiful view'.


	2. The Mind Heart

_**Two: M'gann**_

A blur of yellow and red streaks across the kitchen as Megan turns around from her bowl of cereal. She jumps at the sudden wind, but regains her senses soon enough to stop the sploshing milk with her telekinesis.

Wally, oblivious to almost ruining Megan's meal, slows to a stop.

"Hey, beautiful, what's up?" he greets the other redhead. He grabs her by the shoulders and twirls her around. Megan suppresses the milk in her bowl once again as she spins with him. She laughs at his attitude.

How can he always be so cheerful?

"Why are you so happy?" she asks him as she retrieves the spoon which she hadn't been able to stop from falling, having been too focused on saving her cereal milk.

She looks into his eyes for answers, and clamps down on her desire to read his mind.

Megan loves her life on Earth. She loves her uncle, and her team, and her school, and even the food.

The only problem, the major shift in lifestyle that she can't live with all the time, is the lack of that _feeling _that binds her to the rest of the souls around her.

She wants to connect to this new home which she loves so much in the same way she did on Mars.

On Mars, the word 'mind' has the same connotation as the word 'heart' on Earth. For Martians, it is the mind, not the heart, which is the soulful part of your being that encompasses compassion, and intensity, and turmoil, and every other nameable emotion.

On Earth, you keep people in your heart always. On Mars, you keep people in your mind in a true extra-psychical nature that ties you together and lets you know that they exist just as you exist, that you are not alone and are understood and are loved.

On Earth, she can't have this ever present connectedness with her loved ones (besides Uncle J'onn).

There is no mind-heart that always clings to the people who she holds dear and that hurts. It feels, constantly, like a part of her is missing. It feels like her friends are not real, merely characters she's invented in her playtime stories.

That mind-heart is her lifeblood, her way of directly empathizing with those she cares for. Without the mind link, the world feels dull and cold. It is the longing and ever present pain which gnaws within her mind-heart that makes her do what she does next.

She sets the dirty spoon in the sink and turns around to face her friend, her real friend who is _there_ even if she can't _feel_ him...yet. She opens her mind-heart and lets him in.

And then she feels the real way, the way that having someone in your heart is supposed to be.

She lives the day that Wally claimed made him so happy.

Wally had stood in front of his school and waited for the adorkable girl from science class who had stuffed a note into his locker.

It had said: 'Meet me at the basketball hoop. I want to talk about us.'

Megan knows the worry that this is all one huge trick as if it is her own. Wally and herself are interchangeable as the anxiety laps into excitement and then back into fear.

Will Linda come to or will she later post on Facebook about how she duped that silly ADD kid into thinking she cared?

And then the object of desire had rounded the corner, making herself open to view. She had looked beautiful because she was there, because she hadn't lied or played games.

The mind-heart flutters as it feels the memory of Linda walking toward him...her...them?

Linda's long shiny hair had framed her face just so and her graceful footfalls had reminded Wally...M'gann...who?...of how Linda must be an amazing dancer.

The dance. Why is it so important this year? The mind-heart _knows_; the dance is important because you had met _her_. Wally...M'gann...they would never had thought to make a fool out of themselves by stepping on feet, drinking bad punch, wearing silly clothes, and being cooed at by Aunt Iris.

But now? The mind-heart wants what it wants. All _that_ had suddenly seemed so beautiful the moment you met her in class and grazed your hands as she pulled the beaker out of your grip.

You need to have that experience at the dance with Linda with all of your being.

She had reached you and grappled your hand into her own. Is this it? Can dreams come true?

The mind-heart can't take the anticipation. The blood pumps and makes you light headed.

"Wally," she had whispered, "I'm so sorry. I can't go to the dance with you."

The mind-heart breaks into a thousand little pieces. M'gann cuts herself with one of the rigid remains as she tries to disconnect from Wally's suffering.

Why can't Linda want what I need? What did I do wrong? Who was I kidding?

Inadequacy buries itself down deep into the bruised mind-heart.

Why can't I just have a good day for once?

M'gann lets the connection drop. Wally looks at her with pleading eyes, but Megan doesn't _know_ what he needs to hear from her to make it better.

She can't know, now that he's returned to being unreachable, not fully there, a shadow of a soul that M'gann must remind herself is real and breathing and feeling and thinking.

M'gann thinks his of his words. He had said he was happy.

"_It's just that kind of a day."_

How can he always be so cheerful? Wally, how can your mind-heart be so beautiful?

M'gann searches Wally's eyes for what to do. She decides to pretend that the whole encounter never happened. She doesn't say anything and just makes him his own bowl of sugary cereals, one on top of another.

She hopes her mind-heart is making the right decision. As the room grows quiet, she wonders if she should have told him how beautiful he really is.

She doesn't say anything and lets him twirl her around again before he leaves.


	3. The Bro Code

_**Three: Dick**_

Pied Piper never really lives up to the allusion of his name; Kid Flash had never seen Hartley drive a pack of rats out of Central City and had certainly never watched the rogue drown a group of children.

Today, Wally decides, is the closest Piper has ever come to being the character from the fairytale.

The swarming legion of spiders clump together as they attack.

Wally counts the different kinds of arachnids. He rattles of the scientific names for each of the present species to an uninterested Robin as the insects attempt to overwhelm them. Robin moans as a black and red spider mutates and grows into the size of a frog.

The closer the zombie spiders get to the radioactive ore which Pied Piper is attempting to steal (and could get away with if things keeping going his way) the more the spiders shift and grow into unstoppable beasts.

"I _hate_ spiders," Robin yells as he punches the largest one of the crowd in its bulgy eyeballs. This particular spider is about the size of a goat; however, as it bounds onwards towards the glowing rock despite the three eyes Robin has mushed in, it begins to transition into the size of a dairy cow.

Wally stops to watch this miraculous birth of a new species.

Of course, it would be more amazing if the event wasn't sullied by the fact that this spider is only a new species because of the icky to think about fact that a cow sized spider cannot mate with a normal sized spider.

"You can't hate spiders, Rob," the redhead insists. Kid Flash acts like a bull fighter and tricks the cow spider into splattering against a cinder-block wall.

Robin, noticing how not one pitching bite mark or gooey fleck of spider guts cover the speedster's skin, can't help but think that Wally's opinion is frightfully uninformed.

Besides, Kid Flash's love for the little buggers (or cow sized or maybe soon to be mammoth sized as the army advances closer to the ore) isn't very convincing when he declares his affection between smashing and squishing the animals into nothingness.

"And why," Robin says while he attempts to extricate his foot from a sticky web without losing a boot, "is that?"

Robin gives in and pulls a switchblade from his belt as a spider closes in on him. He makes a deep swipe and cuts the boot from his foot. He tumbles backwards from the web as his foot dislodges. Kid Flash catches him as he falls. Robin eyes his shoeless foot warily and grumbles.

Wally laughs and gives Robin the look that means that he thinks the younger boy is just adorable when he pouts. Robin scowls so KF cheers up his friend by honoring the bro code and removing one of his own shoes from his foot. Robin blinks as Kid promptly trips and falls into a puddle of spider gore when he pulls off his boot.

Robin laughs and gives Wally the look that means that he thinks the older boy is just adorable when he messes up.

Wally, after returning to his mismatched feet, answer Robin's question.

"Because they're beautiful specimens of the world's diversity," he proclaims as he opens his arms wide as if to embrace his spider friends in a bear-hug.

"That's not a good enough reason; you got another one?"

"Well, they match your hair just beautifully when you wear them that way, Mr. Beau." Kid Flash points to the furry, brown spider that Robin currently wears as a hat.

"Wear them like wha-!" Robin leaps into the air as the spider crawls around his hair. He lets out a grapple line and pulls himself up and out the sky light.

"Well, if you love these things so much, you can go deal with them yourself, Kid," Robin yells down from his safe distance. "I'm going to go beat up their zombie master."

The newly mutated mammoth sized spiders attack their solidarity target. Robin watches the yellow and red costume become lost beneath a legion of hairy legs with pleasure.

Wally really is beautiful when he's the one getting bitten for a change.


	4. The Facebook Pics

_**Four: Kaldur**_

Wally has a plan which is the most brilliant of all his ideas ever, at least of the ones he can remember (so maybe he forgets most plans ten seconds later but it's not his fault he thinks so fast). The only hard part of his new idea will be convincing Kaldur to help.

"Kal, buddy, are ya sleeping?" He raps on the Atlantean's door lightly.

Wally knows that Kaldur always goes to sleep by ten when they're not on a mission. It is currently 3:46AM. Wally doesn't mind. It never hurts to pretend to be oblivious. He's found that most of the time, considering people think of him as the oblivious one, he can get away with his rudeness with a bare minimum of apologies.

Wally raps harder on the frame of the door. He speeds his hand faster. The wood splinters inwards with a snap.

Kaldur stumbles out of bed and stalks over to the door. He walks by without noticing the destruction and the other boy breathes out in relief. Kaldur raises an eyebrow at Wally. The redhead flicks his eyes towards the hole in the door as if he senses his teammate's suspicion.

Kaldur catches the shift in Wally's gaze and turns around. He is entirely unsurprised by what he finds.

"Uh..." Wally bites his lower lip. "You see, Kal, there was this bomb. I was disabling it before it went off and, when I disconnected the wire to save all our lives, my elbow just jerked like this," he flings his arm backwards as an example, "and wham I smacked it against-"

Kaldur splays his webbed fingers across the mumbling redhead's mouth in order to end his stream of denials.

"Mfshd," Wally says into Kaldur's hand. Patiently, Kaldur waits for the garbled attempts at speech to subside. When the grumblings at last end, he removes his fingers and lowers his hand until it rests on Wally's shoulder. The blonde gives his friend a sideways glance as he examines the broken wood.

"It's not my fault! There was this swarm of termites-" Kaldur returns his hand to Wally's mouth. They stare each other down. The redhead's muscles relax as he seemingly gives in. Kaldur, once again, releases his hand.

"Wood bees too!" Wally shouts and zooms away before Kal can catch him in his grip. The Atlantean debates whether to seek out his teammate or return to sleep and deal with it all in the morning. His eyes fall on his beckoning bed, but his legs push him in the wrong direction.

He finds KF playing with a digital camera in the kitchen.

"Wally?" The boy jumps up from his stool, knocking it over in the process. Wally picks at a freckle under his eye nervously.

"Okay, you caught me, there wasn't any wood bees or termites. I was just...doing surprise remodeling?"

"I don't care about the door, Kid Flash."

"You don't?" he squeaks. The darker-skinned boy nods.

"Tell me why I've been awoken in the first place, Wally."

Two sets of eyes suddenly rest on the camera laying lopsided on a stack of wobbly pizza boxes. Wally scoops it up.

"Whatcha say about preserving the happy moment?" Wally asks.

Kaldur runs a hand over his baggy eyes and musses his raggedy pajamas. He's suddenly self-conscious.

"I'm going back to bed," Kal declares. Wally jumps to his feet and grabs Kaldur by the arms.

"No! I need your help. Please help me?" Wally pleads with his big green eyes.

Kaldur takes a moment to reevaluate the situation.

The team was dismissed for a break three nights ago after Robin mysteriously came down with a case of what Wally called "Suddenly Appearing Daikaiju Syndrome" (S.A.D.S. for short).

Aqualad had only skimmed the report enough to understand that Robin's sudden growth spurt was not due to S.A.D.S. but instead the temporary effect of Robin storing his friend's souvenir in his utility belt for over a day before Batman found out. Wally, being Wally, had pocketed a chuck of some sort of radioactive ore that had chipped off from the main piece in a struggle.

With the team dismissed and Wally's best friend locked in the Batcave, Kaldur thinks Wally should have no reason to visit. In fact, Kaldur hasn't seen him drop by once since the dismissal.

For what ever reason, Wally cares enough about taking a few pictures to stop by in the middle of the night. It would be unfair of Kaldur to not help his friend with something so easily done after he made the journey to the cave just for this one purpose.

Kal thinks that the bro code should just be invalid at this hour of the day. Kaldur sighs then because he knows he is too good of a friend to just roll over and go back to sleep.

"What do I have to do?" he asks reluctantly. Wally grins and speeds into the next room. He returns with a pile of clothes.

"You are going to put those back where you found them after we're done." Kaldur doesn't leave it up for debate.

"Sure, sure." Wally pulls out a white V-neck tee. He tosses it to Kal. "Put this on."

"What about my gills? If other people will be seeing this picture..."

"Right..." Wally scrounges up a red scarf. He ties it around the other boy's neck. It chafes the skin. Kaldur subconsciously plays with the placement of the scarf as Wally turns on the camera.

"I think that's better." Wally gestures towards the scarf. "No, wait. Move left a little more. Yeah, that's perfect. B-E-A-utiful."

After Wally snaps dozens of pictures with no end in sight, Kaldur's sense of bro code obligation runs a little thin.

"Good, can I go back to bed now?"

"You can't, Kaldur! I need to take more pictures of you!"

"Why?" Kaldur wants to know what's made Wally so desperate.

"Because on Facebook I tell everyone you're my hot boyfriend!" Wally explains in a rush. The room grows silent as Kaldur weighs the importance of Facebook pics in the grand scheme of life.

"I'm going back to sleep."

The Atlantean doesn't like the look of desperation on Wally's face. His eyes almost glisten as if he could cry. His lips are chapped from clamping down on them in fits of nervousness. His hold on the camera is unsteady.

Kaldur notes that Wally is wearing two different colored socks.

"Why do you need me to be your boyfriend on the internet Wally?"

Wally shuffles his feet.

"It...may have something to do with making my crush jealous."

The look of embarrassment isn't any more pleasant than desperation. Kaldur wants to change Wally's expression.

"Okay, take as many pictures as you want."

Wally's smile shines brightly in Kaldur's pale green eyes. Happy, hopeful, and thankful Wally is unbearably beautiful.

Kaldur wonders then what it would be like to be more than Wally's fake boyfriend.


	5. The Shades of Blue

_**Five: Kaldur**_

Super-speed comes in handy for last minute preparations. Wally knows he can, usually, rely on his powers when it comes to crunch time, as long as he can focus, prioritize, and think before he acts.

He needs to think clearly so that his plan doesn't fall apart into a big mess of jumbled steps all done out of order.

Wally, on days like today where he's nervous and jittery and completely unsure of himself, finds that his powers just aren't enough to get things done. The redhead sighs as he throws another shade of blue tie on the bed beside the dozens of others he's put on and promptly tossed aside.

"Why does this have to be so hard?" he whines to the empty room. Someone else joins him.

"Can I offer you any assistance?" the blonde boy asks. He begins to help pick out the tie before his friend can reply.

Kaldur looks at three tones of blue which Wally cannot find the difference between. One shade is a cobalt blue that Kaldur finds too strong for Wally's personality. Another shade is a teal that's too green to contrast properly with Wally's eye color. The last tie is a shade of a deep cerulean that sets off Wally's eyes just so.

Kaldur holds the tie up to Wally's eye level.

"This looks good," Kaldur says lowly as he unravels the tie currently around Wally's neck. His fingers brush slightly against the other boy's bare skin as he works. Wally's flinches reflexively; he's ticklish perhaps.

"You should go with this one." Kaldur begins slowly and deliberately wrapping his choice around Wally's neck. Kaldur's fingers slip underneath Wally's collar and skim across his skin delicately. The points where Kaldur's fingertips trailed prickle with shocks of static electricity.

Wally finds he can't breathe properly even before his friend pulls the tie tight.

"I..uh...thank you," he says softly as soon as he finds his voice.

Kaldur holds his chin high as he admires Wally's formal attire. His eyes follow upwards from the bottom of the shiny black shoes to the arbitrarily out turned pockets of his pants to the carefully placed tie until he meets Wally's green eyes.

His eyes are still and round when Kaldur reaches them. Kal smiles calmly as if everything is normal.

"Where are you going all dressed up?"

Wally pushes his pockets back into his pants and loosens his tie. He tries to match his friend's easy smile.

"I've...got a date," Wally speeds around the room and replaces the ties within their drawers, "It's a dance, like, at school. I wasn't going to go..."

"But?"

Wally plays with his hair causally. He finds a bottle of gel and debates whether to use it as he looks into a long mirror on the closet door.

"I wasn't going to go," Wally says at last, "until you helped me get a date."

Kaldur blinks back his surprise.

"I don't remember doing any such thing," Kaldur says slowly as he furrows his brows.

Wally shrugs.

"It was that Facebook picture spam...Linda, that's my date, she wasn't allowed to go out until her next birthday." Wally pauses as he rolls his eyes at this rule. "Her dad's kind of silly like that. Anyways, so she said she couldn't go to the dance with me."

Wally lets a glob of hair gel fall from his fingers into his palm. He rolls the glob off his palm and into the other one and then rolls it back into the last in a stair-stepping game.

He stops when the ball of gel slips finally and splats onto the floor. Wally stares at the mess distractedly.

"It really hurt when she said no. I thought she was lying about the strict father thing; I thought she was letting me down easy," Wally explains. He looks up from the wet spot on the floor. "I mean who would want to go out with me of all people?"

Kaldur doesn't look away from Wally's eye lock. Wally forgets what he was saying.

"I'll clean that up," Kaldur offers as he points towards the hair gel.

Wally nods and mumbles another thank you.

"Uh...so I wanted to show Linda that she was wrong to think of me as this silly guy who can't get a date," Wally continues. "That's where you came in."

Kaldur turns toward the redhead before tossing his napkins in the trash. The wad of napkins and gel lands in the trash-bin while Kaldur's back is turned. Wally lets out a whistle of appreciation. Kaldur smiles silently.

"I suppose Linda saw the pictures of me tagged boyfriend?" Kaldur says.

"Yup. Apparently she's all moved or something because I can't go to the school dance with a guy and all. She convinced her mom to let her sneak out to go with me."

"How charming," Kaldur says. Somehow, the teen's words are less sincere than normal. Wally decides he must be imagining things.

"She's really nice like that," Wally mentions as he pulls a few boxes of corsages and matching boutonnieres from a drawer. He holds up the different flowers for his friend to inspect. "Any help would be a miracle, bro."

Kaldur glances at the shades of blue.

"What color dress is she wearing?" he asks.

Wally bites his lip and scratches his head.

"Uh...blue?"

"I'm going to need something more descriptive."

Wally sighs and zooms around the room. He appears before Kaldur with a small leaflet of paper.

"She gave this to me to, like, help out," he tells the other boy.

Kaldur carefully inspects the picture of Linda's dress. He hold it up to the light.

"Give her," Kaldur picks up a bright purple hued iris, "this one."

Wally smiles. "If you think she'll like it. Thanks, Kal."

Wally doesn't notice that Kaldur refuses to meet his eyes.

"I'm sure she will," Kaldur says quietly as he walks out the door. He stops in the hall outside of Wally's room.

Kaldur knows that at least Wally will look good, no matter what flower he is wearing. Wally always looks beautiful.

* * *

><p>The flowers in his lapel are the wrong shade of blue; they mismatch Linda's dress.<p>

"I wanted this to be perfect and then I went and brought the wrong color and ruined everything. I'm such a screw up," Wally says deflated. One crusty and gelled strand of red hair topples out of place as he buries his face in his hands.

Linda shakes her head and laughs good naturedly. Her black curls toss as she chuckles. Wally is too busy wallowing in pity to notice how she's done her hair.

"I think they match and you're just color blind," Linda says as she twirls her corsage between her index finger and thumb.

She moves in close to her date and Wally picks up his head as he feels her hot breath on the back of his neck. He finds that her face is only inches away from his.

Linda pretends to inspect his eyes for imaginary defects as if she can prove her hypothesis that Wally is one of the ten million color blind men in America as long as she looks closely enough.

Wally notices her curled hair. He bites his lips.

"God you're beautiful."

"What?" Linda's black eyes flicker.

"The flowers, I mean," Wally grabs her corsage and replaces it on her arm,"the flowers match. They're beautiful."

Linda and Wally fall into a silence as they sit outside the hotel where the school dance has already begun.

Wally withdraws the iris pined to his chest. He licks his thumb and then strokes the petals of the flower; the gesture spreads the bud out evenly. "These are purple," he says after staring at the silky flower in his palm for a drawn out minute.

Linda sighs at her friend's words.

"Yeah...I lied. They don't match my dress, Wally, but I like them anyways because you were the one to pick them out."

He snorts.

"Well, that's just it. I had Kal help me pick them out. I mean how could I screw up when Kal's got my back?"

"Kal? Isn't that you boyfriend's name? The guy on Facebook?"

"Uh..."

"Wally," she smiles somewhat patronizingly, "can't you think of any reason why your boyfriend, of all people, wouldn't want you to have the perfect flowers on a date with someone else?"

"I...uh...could understand how my _boyfriend_ would do something like that." Wally picks at some freckles on his arms as he concentrates on the thought. "I...I think I'm going to have to...talk to him about this later..."

Linda nods. "Sound like a plan." She pats down the wrinkles in her dress. "Could you think while we dance? I can hear the music from here."

"Yeah, that sounds nice." Wally lets her re-pin the iris onto him before they enter the dance at last.


	6. The Bullet He Dodged

_**Six: Wally**_

Kid Flash doesn't get to talk to Kaldur about the flower incident the next day or the day after that. In fact, he does find time to speak with his friend alone, despite being on the same team, until a full week later.

"Kaldur! Man, jeez," Wally pants and holds onto his sides as if he has a cramp, "this really sucks. I need to talk to you though, okay?"

"This," Kaldur unsheathes his water-bearers, "isn't the best time for conversation, Kid Flash."

Wally motions to the space empty of people around them.

"Looks good to me; nice and private and-" the hero is cut of by the attack of the automated weapon he and his partner are currently fighting.

Kid Flash attempts to stare down the energy beams that continually separate him and the team leader whenever they find themselves close enough to talk. His tactic doesn't work well as he soon finds himself nearly singed for his efforts.

"What do you think happens if this thing touches us?" Kid Flash asks as he speeds his friend out of the ray of another blast.

Kaldur huffs as Wally drops him from his arms like a sack of potatoes.

"Sorry," Wally offers meekly, "you're kind of heavy."

Kaldur, having been Wally's friend for years, knows to ignore this comment and focus on the mission.

"For now, let us try to not learn from experience the capabilities of this device," Kaldur orders.

Wally watches the trails of steam blowing around the metal tube's canister.

"I think you have the right idea there, Boss."

Aqualad watches as a clump of dirt disappears when the beam hits the grass lawn. He frowns at an idea.

"Kal? I really need to talk to you," Wally buts into his teammate's thoughts. "You see, it's about flowers."

Aqualad does a double take.

"What?" He looks for flowers in the field and when he find none he wonders if they are disappearing as well.

"F-L-O-W-E-R-S. Like this," Wally draws a five-petaled blossom in the air with his index finger, "I'm sure you've seen one before, bro."

Kaldur uses every ounce of his manners to keep from rolling his eyes; he hates indulging in such unrefined courses of action.

"I believe I've seen these thing known as flowers, Kid Flash," Kaldur states solemnly as he doges another blue stream of light.

"Ha! I've got you to admit that you know of the existence of flowers," Wally snaps out a finger and points it accusingly at the blonde. "Now you can't deny where last week at approximately 7:34 PM."

"Excuse me?" Kaldur doesn't understand Wally's logic.

"You we're with me and the flowers," Wally declares as he pulls out a flower from his boot. Its rumpled form has lost all but one colored bloom. He prods the last limp pedal and directs his friend to look at it as they criss-cross away from the impending laser blasts.

"This is Exhibit A. Notice if you will that this color is purple." Wally jumps up in the air over another beam from the weapon as if playing hopscotch. "May I inform his lofty benchiness," Wally tips an imaginary hat to an imaginary judge, "that this color is not the hue which Mr. Aqualad was directed to match to the plaintiff's attire."

Kaldur pauses then, no longer able to ignore where the conversation is heading, and turns to face his friend.

"I...I don't know what to say. It was...a mista-" he's cut off by a beam that cuts too close.

Kid Flash lunges out before the ray can hit Kaldur and pushes him aside. Wally ends up taking the blast full on. Kid Flash disappears as the flash of light dissipates, leaving Kaldur standing alone without any partner left to help fight the battle.

The multidimensional travel ray fizzes to a stop as it expels its last bits of energy transporting Wally away.

Kaldur finds that all the words which he has left unsaid now borrow deep into his throbbing mind.

Kaldur pulls up his comm and contacts the team.

"I think we have a problem."


	7. The Iris Color

_**Seven:**_

Wally is a nerd and a geek before all else. He loves science for all the infinite possibilities that each theoretical concept inspires. He seeks out every new type of technology which makes real the possibilities that ages ago would have been proclaimed magic (which is totally fake by the way). Wally obsesses over the ingenuity of video games and the complexity of comic book realities.

Wally is such a nerd and a geek that he risked his life to use the twin tools of science and technology combined to turn himself into a comic-esque hero.

For all these reasons, Kid Flash's first thought as he lands on a spongy ground floor full of chopped up dandelions is that this is the coolest thing ever. He has crossed dimensions. The science-fiction fangasm fantasy causes Wally to embarrassingly break into a fit of giggles, _manly_ giggles.

He has proven science to be the ultimate power in the world (take that magic) and, furthermore, learned that someone on his own Earth has invented a piece of beautiful technology which could only be better if it hadn't attacked him and his friend.

The hero's second thought as he observes the new world around him is that-

"Holy shit! The sky is purple," he says as his jaw drops open wide. A redheaded woman with many laugh lines edging her face offers Wally a hand up from the ground.

"You really shouldn't curse that way, Kid," she reprimands gently as she pulls him into an embrace.

"Aunt Iris?" Wally doesn't believe his eyes. "You're..you're old!"

Iris' deep set laugh lines constrict as she sighs halfheartedly. "Yes, I suppose I am; you're just a baby." She smiles wistfully. "I haven't seen you in a Kid Flash costume for ages."

Wally looks down at his costume and frowns.

"What else would I be wearing?" he questions her suspiciously. His eyes perk wide. "I don't become a villain in this reality or anything?"

Iris' places her arm around her nephew's side and pulls him along towards...Wally isn't sure where exactly they are going, but it's Aunt Iris so really he can follow her to the ends of the Earth and it will be alright.

"You're not a villain, Wally." She chuckles. "In fact, you're my hero, just like always."

Wally's smile reaches his ears which redden at her compliment.

"Stop embarrassing me, Aunt Iris."

She laughs again. "How can I stop? You're so adorable at this age and," she stops as she reflects, "the only age you were cuter at was when you were very little." She stops before a steep hill in the road.

"This...I used to go biking here with you and Uncle Barry," Wally whispers as he remembers the place.

"You were my hero then too," she says with another of her easy laughs.

Wally shuffles his feet and ducks his head. "Well...Barry was cool and all, but you we're my first hero first..and stuff," Wally mumbles.

"Wally?"

"Yup?"

"Have you ever crossed dimensions before?"

Wally smiles smugly.

"So your me does this all the time?"

"Something like that," she admits. "I think the beam will send you off somewhere else soon; I've seen this kind of multiverse boom tube before."

The other redhead folds his hands behind his head and strolls up the hill.

He turns cheekily to his aunt. "Race you to the top!" he yells as he becomes a blur. He reaches the top before his aunt can process the challenge.

Iris looks up to the grinning boy. She sees him backdropped against the purple sky as it fades into a darker iris color.

"You know," she shouts up to him, "there's something I always wanted to tell you when we played here but never did."

"Really?" Wally snaps the cord of his goggles. "What was it?"

"When it comes to views, you're the most beau-" Blue streams of light wrap around Wally before Iris can finish her thought. He falls into the portal and disappears.

Iris stays at the bottom of the hill and looks at the scene above.

Her laugh lines crinkle into a frown as her words are left unsaid. There's no point in speaking when the view she wanted to describe just isn't there anymore.


	8. The Multiple Arms

_**Eight:**_

When Kid Flash tumbles out of the portal next, he find himself landing on top of a six armed beast with red eyes. Her six arms wrap around Wally's torso and squash him snugly. Wally gasps to breathe.

"Ah! Can't...breathe here, M'gann."

His friend lets go abruptly and Wally falls backwards a few feet since M'gann had been floating upwards as she hugged him.

"Sorry, Wally," she tells him as she offers one of her six hands to help him to his feet. He takes her hand and pulls himself up.

"No big deal. This," he rubs his sore backside, "seems to be a trend today."

M'gann uses her left middle arm to reach into her cloak. She presents a glowing tube like object and points it towards the spot where Kid Flash made his entrance.

Wally does a double take.

"Is...is that a sonic screw driver?" Wally steals the device out of her hands and she makes a quick squeak in surprise. "Oh my god, how do you have a sonic screw driver? Can I have a sonic screwdriv-"

Megan uses her uppermost right arm to cover Wally's flapping mouth and her bottom left limb to extract her device from Wally's grabby mitts.

"Yes Wally, for one," she holds up one finger on her topmost left hand, "it is what you think it is." She puts up another finger on the same hand. "Two: the way I got it is complicated. I had a team-up with a reality shifter named Jenny Everywhere...fictionality gets very meta around her. In fact, she can bend it to her will on a good day...depending if she remembers how powerful she is..."

Wally all but drools from the mouth.

"I have no idea what you just said but it all sounds very geeky and kind of turns me on."

Megan floats a few inches from the ground as she laughs. "You always say the nicest things, Wally, even when you're from another reality."

"Great. So every other dimension but my own gets to reality hop?"

"Well, on the bright side, that makes you the first man to shift realities from your Earth."

"World Records do somehow salve the wounds to my ego..."'

His words slow to a stand still as he stumbles backwards, clutching his head. A distant pressure crawls around his mind like a worm underneath his skin. The sudden invasion of his inner self seems to clamp down on him without a way of fighting back; he is overpowered and overwhelmed.

M'gann catches her friend as her strong awareness fastens onto his mind.

_"I'm so sorry, Wally,"_ she thinks within the space of their connected minds, "_I didn't realize that you weren't used to this. My friends have linked up with me for years; It was habitual. I would have never done it if I knew..._"

Megan...Wally...they feel then the empathy for that other Martian that has been left behind to fend for herself. The redheaded girl who doesn't choose a sixed armed form and instead hides behind the borrowed face of a television celebrity. The M'gann who lives each day independent from her mind-heart as if she is sleepwalking through life and yet manages to smile and laugh and remind herself that her friends care about her even if they can't express their emotions the way she needs them to.

Wally...Megan...their being feels the regret for not recognizing their friend's mind-heart wrenching pain as she numbly ignores her need to connect with her teammates. Their shared pain deepens as M'gann...Wally...they imagine the suffering of their friend who he...she...once brushed minds with.

M'gann tugs a warm and enveloping emotion neatly around the guilt-wrenched boy like a security blanket. The taunt strings of the mind-heart relax.

Wally, and the mind-heart knows it is from Wally independently, returns a feeling of gratitude to M'gann. He hold her closely within the connection and calms himself slowly.

He lets out a tendril and digs into her mind-heart. A surge of panic and confusion and _"Oh, my god! What am I doing?"_ taints his search so he slows down but doesn't dare back away.

_"M'gann? I...I don't understand this and yet I do. I..."_

_"Wally,"_ Megan nudges him softly as she thinks, _"I am your friend. I would never invade your privacy. I would never hurt you. You're just scared because this whole idea is so brand new."_

He hears..._feels_...her words and _knows_ that she is as honest and true as their friendship is beautiful and enduring. He latches onto her and completes the mind-heart link without uncertainty.

_"M'gann, I'm so sorry I didn't...see your need and help you sooner...I'm going to make this right when I go home...I can't keep hurting you this way. You're just too...beautiful of a person, Meg. You really are."_

The mind-heart glows brightly and revels in their friendship. M'gann sets out to let him know what she thinks.

_"Wally, you're also a really bea-"_

The mind-heart slams down and snaps apart. A reverberating rumbling tosses violently at the sides of M'gann's mind like the tumultuous waves after a typhoon. She's left with the pieces of a broken link that cannot be repaired.

This Wally who she's formed the mind-heart with has disappeared from her reality as if he never existed ...as if he's dead.

M'gann chokes on the words she's left unsaid until she vomits all over her six green arms.

* * *

><p><strong>AN: Random Jenny Everywhere and Doctor Who references because I felt like it.**

_**The character of Jenny Everywhere is available for use by anyone, with only one condition. This paragraph must be included in any publication involving Jenny Everywhere, in order that others may use this property as they wish. All rights reversed. **_


	9. The Giant Change

_**Nine:**_

Kid Flash is less than surprised when he comes to a rolling stop as he's ejected head first from the multidimensional travel portal. However, Wally is admittedly somewhat shocked when the expected helping hand up turns out to be a giant palm beckoning him to hop aboard.

Wally can't choose between cracking a joke and pissing his pants. Luckily, before he can make the wrong decision, the body attached to the forty foot palm lumbers slowly to the ground in a crouch so that Wally can make out the face which was once hidden in the clouds.

"Little Bird, why are you so big?" Wally asks in amazement as he wraps his arms tightly onto Robin's bloated thumb.

Robin's normally sing-song and sardonic voice is low and rumbling as he responds.

"Some dork I used to be friends with asked me to hide a chunk of radioactive ore on my person," Robin drawls as he pulls his hand slowly upwards.

He deposits Wally onto his shoulder. Kid Flash snaps himself into the handy seat belt contraption that runs across Robin's massive shoulder blades like a low worn necklace.

"How did you get here, Kid? I thought I saw some sort of AU boom tube go off," Robin says as he carefully picks up one monster foot and sets it down on a clear area before him.

"This is an unplanned journey," Wally yells above the stomping of his giant friend's heavy steps. "I can't believe you're stuck like this...in my reality the Suddenly Appearing Daikaiju Syndrome wore off."

Robin tries to nod but, thinking of his tiny passenger around his neck, decides against it. He responds with words instead.

"Batman suspects that I would have been fine if the rock was on me for only a day or two," Robin explains.

"How long did you keep it?" Wally wonders aloud.

"A week and a half."

Wally remembers the short contact time that turned a cow spider into a mammoth spider. "Ouch. I'm really a terrible friend, man. Well, your version of me at least..."

Wally leans his head against Dick's broad shoulder.

"It's not that bad," Robin tries to reassure him, "I've made the shortest transition from the small time to the big league for one thing."

"You're not with our team?"

"Of course I am; we're just treated better because I'm kind of hard to use as a door mat."

"Oh." Wally cracks a small smile. "Rob? How do you...do your hacking thing with button mashers like those digits of yours?"

"I don't do much hacking anymore, KF. Unless hacking some bones to make my bread counts."

"Way to make the best a situation, bro." Wally laughs tepidly. "Is there anything good about your...state of stature that makes it worthwhile?"

"Me and Giganta are like this," Dick latches two large fingers around each other, "and we've got the secret handshake to prove it." Wally wonders how safe two giants shaking hands can be for the people on the ground below. "And," Robin continues, "Wondy introduced me to some real Classical-era giants so that was cool."

Wally raps his knuckles across Dick's chest in place of a bro fist.

"You're a really great friend, Dick. I changed your whole life by talking you into a really stupid decision and yet you don't hold it against me." Wally sighs. "What did I ever do to deserve friends like you?"

Robin stops before a skyscraper and sets Wally on its balcony. Once Wally is facing him, he gives him one of those looks which mean he was thinking the same thing but the other way around.

Wally laughs until he's red at the sheer ridiculousness of Robin giving him one of their secret bro looks with a face so comically large.

"I'm going to miss you when I go, Big Bird." He sighs. "I wish I could come back here...I think I left M'gann really sad in the last universe I beamed to."

Robin tilts his bobble head. "You don't have a universe jumper?"

Wally shakes his head. "We don't have a system in place in my universe for dealing with alternate reality travel," Wally admits.

"Huh," Robin pulls on the lobe of his ear. Wally notices that Dick's always sizable ears wear better on his new giant head.

"Well, if you ask me," Robin says even though no one asked him, "you should work on fixing that because I've found that once you jump into one reality you'll find yourself in other in the blink of an-"

Wally isn't surprised when he disappears into a blue stream of light in the blink of an eye.


	10. The Zen Psychic

_**Ten:**_

His landing this time is cushioned. Wally smiles into the rolls of fabric which kept him from becoming a pancake. After a few seconds of cozying up to his makeshift pillow, he realizes that this landing pad is actually the fluffy ruffles of a skirt. Wally opens his eyes. His vision is flooded with a blue which he can't place the shade of.

"Linda?" he guesses. Wally wishes he could hide his blushing face in her skirt but finds that his closeness to her only embarrasses him more. Apologetically, Wally takes hold of the girl's hands and helps her up. Her skirt poofs back out now that she's off the lawn.

"It's not every day that I get floored by a real, live superhero," Linda says. Her lips curl into a teasing smile as she flattens out her dress.

"Superhero?" Wally looks from her dress to his own clothes. "Oh."

He racks his mind for some explanation for why Kid Flash is at a school dance mauling down random civilians who he just happens to be on first name basis with for no logical reason. His mind runs a mile a minute, but he can't pick which argument to use.

I heard the fruit punch here was fantastic…

Kid Flash who? I'm just a random cosplayer who in no shape or form looks exactly like Wally West in the perfect replica of a Kid Flash costume…

Congratulations! Linda Park, you've won a date with Kid Flash! You didn't enter any contest? I guess you're just that lucky, Miss Park…

Linda doesn't react to Wally's prolonged silence. She watches his face contort in concentration as he panics. "I want to be a journalist," she says at last.

"Huh?" Kid Flash responds.

Linda grabs Wally by his hand and pulls him away to somewhere more private. "I have a way with words," Linda explains when they reach the wooded area of the Science Club's compost pile.

Wally baulks at Linda's domineering attitude. "Uh…" Wally isn't sure what to make of her completely random conversation.

"I'm told that being good with words is a rare talent," Linda says pointedly. Wally replays his entire contribution to their conversation thus far.

"Very funny," Kid Flash jokes with a self-conscious frown. He's glad that the ice has been broken even if the price was a shot at his dignity.

Linda motions for Wally to sit beside her on a large log. "Why did you fall out of a blue hole in the sky, Kid Flash?" she asks once they're finally settled.

"Well," Wally molls over the ways of explaining his current situation, "I'm incidentally…zen mutli-dimension hoping. The portal will come back for me soon."

Linda goes along with this explanation as if these types of things are an everyday occurrence. "You're not _my_ Kid Flash. That explains some things." Her ringlets bob with her head as he nods. "Zen?" she prompts.

"All my friends have been really helpful in their realities," Kid Flash reasons with a halfhearted shrug.

Linda ducks her head to hide a smirk. "You can have friends dressed like that?"

Wally remembers he's Kid Flash for the second time. "Well…some of my friends are like sidekicks too."

Linda lifts her chin back up. She no longer hides her smirk. "Wally?"

"Yup?"

"I blatantly know who you are and you're being really oblivious to the matter."

"Uh, well…" Wally takes a deep breath and stops sputtering incoherently. "Sorry, I can do that…sometimes…"

When Linda smiles at his behavior, Wally wants to hide in the folds of her skirt once more.

Linda remembers Wally's explanation for being here. "Zen means words of wisdom, right? I can do that." She presses two fingers on the corner of her temple as if directing her energies to her mind. "The powers of the great beyond tell me that you're feeling like a moron for not noticing something right in front of you."

Wally sighs deeply. He hates being so transparent.

"Is it a girl?" Linda guesses.

Wally shakes his head morosely. He gives in to self-pity and buries his head in her lap. He waits for her to continue.

Lind drops her hands from her temple and starts rubbing his back. "I thought you were feeling oblivious to someone's crush on you…"

"I am." Wally's words are crisp and clear regardless of the placement of his head within her skirts.

"But it's not a girl," Linda says as she twirls a curl.

Wally picks himself up and Linda drops the hand which was comforting him. He raises his eyebrows. Linda unwraps the lock of hair around her finger. It bounces like a spring as it is released.

"Oh, uh, sure. I totally saw that coming," Linda taps forehead, "I am psychic and all. So, who is this guy? I bet I know him."

Wally licks his lips. "Aqualad," he announces.

Linda seems entirely baffled by this news. "Garth?" she speaks with disbelief.

"Who?" Wally asks. He is suddenly more confused than her.

"Doesn't matter," Linda decides. She sits up straight and folds her hands in her lap. Her painted nails shine in the streams of light which pop out from the sides of the pebbled pathway. She gathers her determination. She's going to make her words of wisdom the best her friend has ever heard in all his reality jumping; after all, she is a writer. "Wally, you are a really amazing guy," she starts off.

Wally makes light of her compliment. "Duh, I'm the Fastest Kid Alive."

"No, it's more than that," Linda presses. She places a hand lightly on his arm and squeezes him reassuringly. "You can change someone's mood just with a word. You're always optimistic. You always help your friends without having to be asked. In fact my you told me about," she waves at his flashy costume, "all of this because you wanted to help me out."

Wally looks intrigued. He's never revealed his identity to a friend at school before.

"You started giving me interviews and that's kind of a big deal for an intern," Linda says. "After the third interview, you told me your identity because…you trust your friends implicitly."

Wally grins widely. "I get to be in the paper. Somehow, it feels like I've got the better end of our agreement."

Linda shakes her head. "There you go making light of what you do yet again, Wally." She sighs. "That doesn't work on me, okay?"

Wally avoids her eyes. The redhead jumps to his feet and pretends that he needs to stretch. He leans on his side and pulls out the tendons in his leg. He focuses on a blackened banana peel at the top of the compost pile behind them. He makes out the silhouette of a pill bug crawling out from underneath the rotting peel.

Linda hangs her head sideways as she bends over to meet his green eyes. Her black curls fall against her cheek. "If I'm going to give you some advice while I'm on the clock, then I'm going to get to the point. Wally, as a writer, I've learned that in life we bury the lead. We don't say what really matters. I don't care if it's silly things like reminding your parents you love them on the way out the door or complimenting a teammate for the job he did, you still have to speak up. People aren't mind readers even if they, like me, claim to be."

"Well—" Wally is cut off by Linda.

"Miss M aside," she smiles, "Anyways, your friends want to hear the same things you wish they'd admit to you more often. If you're going to say all the random things, then why hold back the important parts?"

"I guess that is silly," Wally agrees.

Linda pauses as she searches for something more enlightened to say. "Don't sabotage yourself," Linda declares in a burst of inspiration as she finds a new idea.

Wally doesn't follow her train of thought since he isn't psychic. "What?" he asks.

"Tell that guy how you feel and don't hold back," Linda says. "If you don't make it clear that you are taking his interest in you seriously, then he might get the wrong idea."

Wally frowns. "So…I shouldn't try to ask him if he loves me while we're dodging bullets?"

Linda laughs. "Well, that's just obvious." Her eyes flash with realization. "You didn't!"

"They don't call me oblivious for nothing."

"You're more aware than you give yourself credit for," Linda scolds him.

"If you say so, Linda." Wally rolls on his heels and swings his arms back and forth.

Wally's friend smiles as she watches him. "I figured," Linda begins, "that I should reassure you while I can. I wouldn't want to leave my words—"

Wally fills in the rest of her sentence for her even though he's busy being sucked away by the portal. Maybe he is psychic or something.


End file.
